OUR LONDON LETTER.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1257, 18 March 1878, Page 2

OUR LONDON LETTER.

[written specialize for the globe.J London, January 31. The month, which comes to a close to-day, has been a most exciting one, both as regards foreign politics and domestic affairs; and it this had been an ordinary January, many topics of home interest would hare been advanced to a degree of importance which they have missed solely on account of the more exciting phantasmagoria of the close of the great struggle in the East of Europe. But war has been looming over us in this country, and all public feeling and sympathy have been absorbed in the sayings and doings of Her Majesty’s Ministers, who were pleased t( call Parliament together three weeks earhe* than usual. We were not favored with th* presence of the Queen at the opening of th< Houses, for Her Majesty prefers her comfortable home at Osborne to the cheeriest jjaetropojia in, the bittep and dismal weather whicli we always experience fpr the first fev weeks of the new year. So the royal robe e were not displayed on fha ThrPße in a Bt J l( ' which has led some scoffers at royalty to compare the best end of the House of Lords to a second-hand clothes’ shop. Again we heard fhe manly bass of Lord Cairns read the speed which used in byegoue years to be spoken bi the Queen herself, though the time way soo; oomo when, if wo do not pee the face, we tyyt (fee TB*Cfl 8$ for Hw tyWi

the royal family have been amusing themselves at Osborne with the newly-invented telephone which has sent the quasi-scientific folk of London half crazy this winter. The experiments were even more successful in the quiet rooms of the Queen's Isle of Wight retreat than they were in the crowded lecture halls of the metropolis, and it was demonstrated that it was quite possible for the Lords and Commons assembled in Westminster to hear an exact mechanical reproduction of every shade of tone in the Royal voice although HerJMajesty might be reading her speech as far away as Balmoral. It may come to pass. We have seen stranger things happen than that.

I mentioned in my last letter that the directors of the Union Bank of Australia had resolved upon a large increase of capital, and since then the project has been discussed aud approved by a general meeting of shareholders and confirmed at a special meeting held yesterday, though the step seems to have led to a permanent depression in the value of the stock. At the meeting the chairman, Mr J. S. Hill, devoted the greater part of alongspeech to a defence of the course on which the Board had resolved. He pointed to the progressive nature of the business of the Bank, and to the great extension of pastoral enterprise in the Australasian colonies, specially mentioning the large export of cereals from New Zealand. Several shareholders adversely criticised the amount of premium at which it had been resolved to issue the new capital, and an appeal was made to the directors to issue the new shares at £65, but they declined to do so, having a large number of proxies to back them up, and in the result their proposal was adopted by a large majority of the shareholders present. The meeting yesterday was only formal. Another meeting which may be of some interest to my readers, was held the day before yesterday, that of the New Zealand Trust and Loan Company, at whose half-yearly assembly Sir C. Clifford presided and explained that the principal business of the meeting was to declare an interim dividend. No accounts, he said, had yet been prepared for presentation to the shareholders, but the audit of the company’s affairs up to the end of last year showed such a flourishing result that the reserve fund could be increased, and a dividend at the rate of twelve per cent per annum declared. The Company’s preference shares are being issued, and there is a large number of applications for them. Of course on such a very pleasant state of affairs there could be no objection raised, and everything was as harmonious as possible.

The chief actors in the most notorious criminal and legal cases of the month have been solicitors, and their misdeeds were so ilagrant that one of them has disappeared altogether from public life, while two others have been compelled to take what may be termed a long professional holiday. The principal malefactor was one Frederick Dimsdale, who had been a member of the legal profession for more than thirty years. He had fine offices in Lombard street, in the midst of the bankers and wealthiest merchants of London. He also maintained a considerable establishment in Mayfair, which is by far the most expensive quarter of the metropolis. All this of course could not be done on an ordinary professional income, so Mr Dimsdale had recourse to an extensive swindle in order to obtain constant supplies of money. In conjunction with several other men, who seem to have been as much hia dupes as his accomplices, he manufactured sham title deeds to property, and on these fictitious parchments obtained, on mortgage, advances to about three hundred thousand pounds. Of course such a trick could not be possible in the colonies, where a system of registering titles exists, but in this country, where* we have no actual means but the conveyance itself of knowing who really owns property, it is comparatively easy, and to a professional man scarcely any difficulty offers itself. The crime was so patent and glaring, that when Dimsdale was placed at the bar of the old Bailey for trial he pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to penal servitude for life—a doom at which he made a profound bow to the Judge. He must have known perfectly well the fate that awaited him, for it was exactly the sentence that was passed many years ago on Mr Wm. Roupell, once a member of Parliament, who also pleaded guilty to the forgery of a number of sham title deeds relating to the property of his family. Roupell has passed many years in penal servitude, and it has frequently been announced that he was about to be liberated, but I believe he is contented with the lot to which many people believe he voluntarily surrendered himself to screen other persons, and it is even said he has refused all offers of freedom. Possibly Mr Dimsdale may be equally stoical. His crime is a rare one, but it is singular that he was no sooner sentenced than another man was detected practising the same fraud, but on a much smaller scale. Indeed what I may call fine-art descriptions of fraud were never more prevalent than at the beginning of this year of grace. The other two solicitors were brought to book by one of the Judges of the Court of Chancery, and the case arose out of the sale of an estate in Ireland. They had made an arrangement secretly between them to take in both vendor and purchaser in the matter of commission, but one of the parties found out the little trick and brought them to book. All the Judges seem to have a professional instinct of seventy towards misdoing solicitors, and the impeached parties in this case haye been prohibited from practising for a long time to come.

The Divorce Court, which has been sitting since term began in the early part of the month has not yet furnished anything worthy of particular notice, having been chiefly occupied with undefended suits of a most ordinary kind. We have, however, a great case to come on for this week. Sir J. Hannen, the Judge, has made an order for the trial by jury of the petition which has been presented by Lord Aylesford against his wife and the Marquis of Blandford as the corespondent. It may be recollected that amongst the brilliant suite which accompanied the Prince of Wales on his tour through India was the Earl of Aylesford, who is still a very young man, not being yet quite thirty years of age. Before he was 22 years old he married the daughter of a Berkshire gentleman, and in the course of their married life the Countess has presented him with two daughters. It is as Regards her conduct while her lord was in India that the inquiry is to be held. The co-respondent, the Marquis of Blandford, who is heir to thef Dukedom of Marlborough, is a man slightly older than the petitioner. He married several years ago a daughter of the Duke of Abercorn, by whom he has four children. The greatest interest will be aroused by this trial, for the parties to it are not merely people of rank, hut are really intimate friends of the royal circle. The police have again proved most singularly deficient in the discovery of a criminal. Only a few days ago a most daring attempt was made to murder a man in the heart of London, and the assassin was enabled to bailie the police and to escape into the country, where he committed suicide after remaining there quite unconcealed for some days. The victim was a Mr Hamburger, one of those semi-foreigners who crowd the district of Clerkenwell and make little fortunes out of dealings in foreign watches and precious stones. This man in particular was known to do something considerable in the way of diamonds, a fact which was known (o a young man named William Jackson, who had taken an office on the top soqr of one of the mag. nificent buildings that have recently been erected on Holborn Viaduct, within the proverbial stone’s throw of the Old Bailey, where ■ie might have ended his days. When Hamburger call d there a ferocious attack was made on him by Jackson, whose object, it is believed, was to obtain possession of the dia monds wliich Hamburger always carried about him. A pistol shot, which Jackson fired, did not fat illy wound H> mburger, tvhq struggled with his assailant until he became weak IVopa loss of blood. Baffled jn his attempt at murder and robbery, Jaqkgon escaped from the building, whije Hamburger, who wu s smothered in blood, crawled down the huge staircase and gave information to the polios, who do not seem to have done anything more than ascertain that Jackson did not return either to his office or to the place where he lived. They knew nothing more of the matter for four days, when they heard that a young mas had committed suicide in tj|e obyychyard of the littje of filter, m( Hi

sex. This was Jackson, who had gone down to that retired part of the country, had taken his dinner at the village inn, attended the afternoon service at the parish church, and then shot himself a few minutes afterwards. When he was searched there was found on him a pocket-book, in which he had written a long history of his connection with Hamburger, and added that he was sorry for the deed he had done. He hoped, he said, that Hamburger would recover: as for himself, he preferred to die by a bullet than to stand the chance of being hung. His hope will probably be realised for Hamburger, who was not so seriously wounded as was at first thought, has continued to improve, and will probably be convalescent in a few weeks. While visitors to London are wondering at the rapidity with which the suburbs are extending and admiring the vast improvements which are constantly being effected in the central portion of the metropolitan area it seems doubtful whether the builders intend their work to endure. We have, too, this curious contradiction in the action of the local authorities to whom is entrusted the supervision of these matters, that while they are perpetually quarrelling with the owners of large properties, over what mostly are trumpery technical matters they pay no attention to the misdeeds of real offenders, the builders who put up our middle class houses, Mr Hankey, the banker, has erected near St. James’s Park a monster mansion, whicli is of such enormous strength that it is likely to be the only building standing for the New Zealander to sketch when he sits on the ruins of London bridge, yet the District Board of Works want him to take off the top storey because they think he has gone too high. This case has given rise to litigation, which has as yet had no results, but within a week from its being fought over two new houses have tumbled down in different parts of London, and in each case a man has lost his life. One was a small house in the pleasant suburb of Hackney, part of a row that were being erected by one Mr Hackett, a man who had no practical knowledge of building. He was warned by the local surveyors that bad materials were being used, and they actually compelled him to rebuild a portion of the houses. However, a faulty wail still remained, and this fell in and killed a bricklayer. One of the most telligent juries ever summoned to an put some searching questions to the nesses, and in the end found a verdict of n§jt« slaughter against Mr Hackett, who if escapes imprisonment for his neglect, will 1 to spend a very unpleasant time at his t pill The other case occurred at night in the HSSH market, where a new house that was being'' built almost wholly of stone, completely collapsed, and in its fall brought down an adjoining house, and killed the only inmate, the shopkeeper. The inquiry in this case is proceeding. Amongst the startling events of this month was a suicide in the middle of St. Paul’s Cathedral. A young man named Stevens, who had been employed in the telegraph department of the post office, but was on leave of absence owing to a severe attack of nervous debility and depression, went to St. Paul’s one afternoon, ascended to the whispering gallery under the dome, climbed over the high railing which protects that remarkable place, and leaped to the pavement about a hundred feet below. Of course death was instantaneous. He fell across the back of a wooden chair, and was terribly smashed.